AVANI..
a handful of dust -
Synopsis
a dance theatre presentation by Anita Ratnam and ensemble

The choreography, music and film design draw inspiration from Tagores’s
poetry and its inflections, focusing on its nuances and subtleties.
Scene:
A backyard. A verandah. You. Me. Anyone.
Immersed, submerged in the potent beauty of Gurudev’s words.

An exploration of the myriad moods of love and its interior landscapes.
Themes of longing, separation, memory, loss, pain, hope are
extrapolated and abstracted in this piece. Using the abhinaya from the
Bharatanatyam traditions and spoken text, the choreography paints new
brush strokes as it reconfigures familiar notions of sringara. The
choreography also juxtaposes the poetry of Tagore with the uplifting
poetry of Tamil poet and social activist Kalki Krishnamoorthy, thus
reinforcing Tagore’s vision of a pan-Indian aesthetic.

Using the complex rhythms from global percussive influences, the
high-energy, movement oriented choreography utilizes adavus from
Bharatanatyam in more innovative ways. The choreographic intent is to
work against the dreamlike, ethereal, metaphysical poetry, offering a
kine-aesthetic counterpoint using cross rhythms and spoken text. The
dance-design and music reverberate the entire stage with multiple
possibilities of how the self and the divine, the individual and the
universe are inseparable. The feminine poetry co-exists with the
masculine percussion in this work, reflecting Tagore’s concept of
polarity and dichotomy.

“Enchanting Mohini, your eternal beauty mesmerizes the world” (Tagore)“Regal Meenakshi, you are the sole refuge for all of humanity” (Dikshitar)

The haunting composition of masterful Carnatic composer Muthuswammi
Dikshitar captivated Tagore when he heard it on his visit to Madras. He
carried the song back with him to Shantiniketan and transformed the
devotional lyric into an iconic song that transposed the Tamil
Goddess Meenakshi into an eternally beautiful Basonti /
Spring. The overlapping of melodic structures, deeply resonant of
quiet meditative spaces reveals the deep wisdom and hypnotic inner
landscapes of two geniuses who lived a century apart.

A series of writings on trees called “Briksha Bandana” marks
Tagore’s reverence for the outdoors. His classrooms at Santiniketan were
the open skies and the shade of the many magnificent trees that gave
shade to his bristling and fecund mind. The choreography plays off
the words of the actor and the quiet counterpoint of a single hand
gesture that moves, sweeps, evokes, conjures and suggests the many
worlds that occur around trees - a silent and static witness to
humanity.

Section 5Fifth Handful - Gold“Today at the altar of the day’s end, as it blows in a last salutation, I make you my obeisance- accept it, O Earth!” (from Prthivi, translated by Tarak Sen).
Nature/Nurture – Chaos, Calm

Tagore has created masterful epic poetry, animating the earth as a
utopian vessel of purity and excellence, constantly being exploited by
mankind. Drawing inspiration from Tagore’s vision, this
interdisciplinary work uses the earth as a metaphor for the many
faces/phases of humanity addressing current concerns of the
environmental degradation. The choreography views the earth as a
feminine energy and draws inspiration from the rich Goddess mythology of
India. Tagore invokes the earth as Usha (dawn), Sandhya (dusk),
Annapurna (goddess of abundance), Annakrita (terrible). Recontexualizing
these classical tropes of the feminine divine, the choreography further
reassesses how these tropes are applicable to the modern 21st century. A
combination of contemporary and classical soundscapes, spoken text, the
choreography draws upon diverse vocabularies such as Kathakali,
Bharatanatyam, Butoh, meditative movement, rehearsed improvisations and
theatrical interventions.